And the angel of the Lord said to her, “Behold, you are pregnant and shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael because the Lord has listened to your affliction. He shall be a wild donkey of a man, his hand against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen.”
Genesis 16:11–12 (ESV)
This chapter gives us a fascinating contrast between the faithfulness of God and the unfaithfulness of Abram. God has made a covenant with Abram and walked the blood path to confirm His resolve to bring the covenant to fulfillment, and just a few years later Abram compromises his faith and accepts the culturally acceptable practice of bringing forth a child for his barren wife by impregnating her servant girl. In essence, Hagar became a surrogate mother, bearing a child that would belong to Sarah.
The problem of infertility is no small problem. Not only is it one of the most painful hurts a woman can experience, but it is also complicated by the fact that God’s people generally see the ability to conceive a child as something God does in us. Sarah said to Abram, “Behold now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children.” It is not hard to see the oncoming disaster Abram’s compromise would cause. Hagar would likely resent having to give up her baby to Sarah and Sarah would resent Hagar for being able to conceive with her husband. They would forever live with the reality that the child was biologically Abram and Hagar’s. How could there not be trouble arising out of this? Sarah had the upper hand of authority but Hagar had the child.
When Hagar fled from the harsh treatment of Sarah, it is interesting that the angel of the Lord told her to return and submit to Sarah. One has to wonder why God would so direct her. It is likely that if Hagar would submit herself to Sarah, Sarah might begin to treat her more humanely. But Ishmael was born to Abram and God had made a covenant with Abram that his seed would become as many as the stars of the sky. So, in a back-door kind of way, Ishmael participated in the covenant. Indeed, today we know that the Arab nations have descended from Ishmael. While the ten nations that occupied Canaan are extinct, two peoples have remained to dwell in the land since that time, the Arabs and the Israelites. And the character of Ishmael that God prophesied has proven to be lived out by his descendants. Even today there is little love between the descendants of these brothers, Ishmael and Isaac.
While Abram is credited with being a man of faith who, “believed God,” he was not a perfect man. We saw him make the foolish mistake of requiring his wife to pretend not to be his wife when he was living in Egypt and the near-disaster that became. And here, rather than wait for God to bring forth the son of promise, he gave in to the urging of his wife and the cultural wisdom of the day, and the results were conflict and violence for his descendants even to this day.
My Prayer For You Today
is that you will not allow your faith in God to waiver or be deceived into compromising
with the wisdom of the world and its corrupted culture.